


Black Magic

by Moonlessmondays



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas AU, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:56:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessmondays/pseuds/Moonlessmondays
Summary: **A Christmas Fic**“Regina Mills only has two secrets she’s been keeping all her life: one, she has the biggest crush on one of her coworkers, and second(and the biggest one yet), she’s a witch. Yep, she’s a witch. So what happens when her sister who has been gone for a long time and who seems to be twins with chaos, comes back for the holidays?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys still remember me. I thought I'd post this stupid fic that has been stored away for like 2 years now. I think I might have forgotten to actually write properly so I am hoping this will get me on the right track, Hope you all like it!
> 
>  
> 
> **Unbetaed because I may have forgotten how to write fics, but I haven't forgotten how to be me.**

**Chapter One**

 

Regina Mills likes her coffee sweet. It’s kind of seems a little out of character and seems more like right at the alley of Storybrooke’s resident Disney Princess—Mary Margaret, and it’s not something people would assume about her. In fact, she knows no one would even guess that she downright despises bitter coffee. She doesn’t mind a little zing of bitterness from time to time, especially when she needs the caffeine more than the taste, but it doesn’t mean she likes it. It’s why it’s just a tad bit of a disappointment when her taste buds recognize the bitterness of the cup in her hand. If Granny had not been too out of the way, she’d have made her usual coffee run there. But she hadn’t had the time, and she’d been forced to get coffee from the watered down, overpriced coffee place near her office. With a look of disgust contorting her face, she throws her _venti_ -sized latte and thinks that it’s been a waste of money when she could have had a regular latte (which she prefers actually over this) but she’d wanted a taste of the Christmas cheer the coffee cup had been boasting about.

She probably could have made a better cup at home.

And she probably would have had, had she not been late waking up again, that is, because she had been stupid enough to forget to set up her alarm the night before, and so when she had woken it was already half past seven and she only had 45 minutes to finish getting ready and get to the office.

Mercifully, she doesn’t have to deal with her hair that day since she’d already washed it the night before, blow-dried it even and put it in a ponytail to give it more volume. She’s always tried to keep her makeup to the bare minimum (though most times she doesn’t really succeed in it)—filling in her eyebrows, applying a generous coat of mascara and then her red lipstick and then she’s done. Other times she would have criticized herself for it, but on this day she thanks herself that she’s made all that and not took so long because it would have caused further delay and shit she really can’t deal with early in the morning running on little sleep _and_ with stupid stale coffee to boot.

Sighing as she adjusts her scarf around her neck with a slight tug, she glances down her clock and makes a mental calculation of how late she’s going to be this morning. It’s not a habit, definitely not, but she’s been late enough times in the time she’s worked here that she’s not very keen on adding more, considering how the distasteful knitting of her boss’s brows is usually enough to set her nerves on the edge and make her bite anxiously on her bottom lip the whole day.

Seven minutes.

She has seven minutes to get from this coffee shop to her office building across the street, and that’s if she doesn’t get behind a slow poke, meandering around the underpass as if they’re walking under the fucking moonlight.

Five minutes.

She only has five minutes now as two minutes just passed her by whilst she stood outside the coffee shop, fighting the bitingly harsh cold wind as she tries to compute the time she would spend walking from here to there instead of actually transporting herself there like she should.

Moving quickly, she discards of her thoughts and lets her legs do the work, making her way to the building and getting there just at the right time for the elevator to open and ding, indicating that it is going up like she is supposed to be.

“Hold it,” she yells, rather loudly and embarrassingly, as she runs towards the contraption.

There is a man inside and he looks up just in time, nods (irritably she can tell, though he tries to hide it by schooling his features into something more neutral), and holds the door open for her. She tries to get there faster, but it seems she’s not going fast enough because the man lets out a truly exasperated smile and lets go of the button that holds the door open—and _what an ass—_ the door closes, but she makes it just in the nick of time by holding her hand out, to which he responds with a knee jerk reaction of holding the button down once again.

If he just had held it down longer the first time—she thinks with contempt as she glares at him distastefully.

“Well, where I come from people usually say thank you,” he sasses, and his voice permeates to the empty space around them. His accent is thick and beautiful, and his voice is warm and deep, and doing things to her that---no, hell fucking no. She’s not thinking that.

Not when he very nearly caused her arm to fall off their socket!

She huffs and rolls her eyes at him. “You nearly took off my arm!” she protests, refusing to thank him, even when she knows she should, because despite the little incident he’s caused, well, he did help her.

“You just can’t say thank you, can you?” he says, a smile cracking his lips to which he responds with another irritable roll of her eyes. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Miss Mills.” He makes a mock bow right beside her and she harrumphs, turning her nose further.

“Just about the same pleasure I feel when I see you, I’m sure,” she retorts grumpily, her arms crossing against her chest and her lips forming into a pout that looks very much like a child’s though she’s not really very willing to admit that.

Of course, it’s not always like this between them, Regina muses as she stares at a point in the ground as if it’s something interesting.

She’d known him a long time, and she has become somewhat friends with him. His family has moved to Storybrooke along time ago, when they’d been about to enter Senior High. She hadn’t been exactly a best friend of his, but they’d been civil then, if a little competitive. Robin had seemed to do the same things she did, and sometimes he’d done them better. They had been in the same writing club in senior high, and she’d always found it so hard to take him seriously, knowing how popular and athletic he actually is (and jocks could never be _nerds_ at the same time). She remembers him being something like a heartthrob, and she can never forget the huge amount of crush her sister harbored for him back then. Zelena swears it hasn’t been like that, and that she only admired Robin’s archery skill, but Regina swears that so did the whole school at the time, and they’d definitely been some kind of a groupie. It’s been a long two years of suffering through ‘ _Robin this, Robin that’_ not only from her sister, but from the whole school it seems. And then they all moved out for University, with her moving to New York, and him to Boston and they’d lost touch.

 It had been two years after she had moved back when he moved back too, two of his University buddies in tow. He’d applied to the same publishing company that she works for and they have been working together for a few years now. At first she’d thought him too arrogant and not worth her time because he seemed to be cocky in a way that was almost careless. It’s like he just knows he’s too good. Since then, everyday has become a game of _how to thread through another one of Regina and Robin’s infamous fights._ Their days spent together working had been turbulent, to say the least. There had been days when they downright ignore each other, and those days are better than most, and then there are days when they seemed to really absolutely _cannot_ stand each other that they just bicker all throughout the day, and bickering is a very, very light term to put it.

It’s gotten better in the last year, she supposes, though it is rather begrudgingly on her part. Right now, they’re at the point where neither of them are particularly itching to cross and go the other way when they meet each other on the street anymore. And they do get in some laughs in together sometimes, when they’re not at going at each other, which is rare and few in between, but still, not as once in a blue moon as it once had been.

It’s progress—at least.

Oh, who is she kidding?

It’s gotten better, of course, and she’s friends with him now—really close friends, at that. They work side by side a lot, and he values her opinions the same way he values hers—a lot. Professionally, they’re colleagues, but outside the office, they’re really good friends. Besides, she won’t admit to it, and if it does get out she will deny it to her deathbed, but she _does_ like him, however begrudgingly, she does, and if it isn’t like, then she most definitely admires him. He is generous and kind—to a fault really—and though she finds herself rolling her eyes at that sometimes, she does find herself feeling warm to the inside whenever she finds him being kind to others (mostly because he does it out of the goodness of his heart and does not really expect anything in return), and proving to her that he’s an honourable person, and that chivalry isn’t dead.

Even if he did almost get her arm cut off a while ago.

“Very pleasant, indeed,” he chuckles and it’s warm and lacking the sarcasm that’s laced the sound whenever he directed any statement or comment to her in the past. She gives him a sideway glance and takes note of the way the corner of his eyes crinkles and the way his eyes glimmer as he smiles so brightly.

Isn’t it just a little bit too early to be so fucking cheery?

“Why are you so damn happy so early in the morning?” she mutters with just a slight bitterness, because well—she didn’t really wake up on the right side of the bed, or in time...at all.

He glances at her with a raised eyebrow and smug grin. “What? Did the Grinch pay you a visit last night and told you that he’s passing his crown to you?” he asks sarcastically, though it lacks its usual bite. “It’s almost the holidays, stop being such a grouch.”

“You’d say that,” she mumbles at him, thinking of how far away Christmas is still—a good few weeks, but it seems that he’s already well in his way to the _holiday freaking spirit._

“Of course, Scrooge,” he teases, making her snort internally and groan outwardly because he’s now found another nickname she’s going to despise for the rest of his life. Much like the _Evil Queen_ moniker her colleagues have dubbed her with for being ruthless and snarky and basically heartless when she’s getting what she wants (and perhaps partially because she’d shown up in two consecutive Halloween parties dressed in a more seductive version of the Evil Queen just to spite them and maybe give them a little something to talk about).

“Don’t start,” she warns, shaking her head. She looks up to see that they are one floor away from their destination, and sighs. “I only just barely got rid of the other one.”

“What the Evil Queen one?” he asks, just as the elevators ding and the doors open. She hears the mirth in his words and she sighs, shaking her head. She walks before him, trying to be dismissive, but hears him when he speaks anyway, “You know from this angle, the evil moniker doesn’t seem to fit.”

She looks back at him to find him staring at her ass accentuated by the skin tight black dress she’s chosen out of haste this morning, not that her clothes aren’t all skin tight and black—after all black _is_ her colour...but still, this one she’d always thought to be a little too daring for work.

“Eyes off my ass, Locksley,” she warns, though even she hears the playful tone in which she says—she absolutely is _not_ flirting with him—of course not. “Or I take your eyeballs off their sockets.”

She hears the soft rumble of his laughter and though she tries to fight it, a smile breaks through her lips.

**. . .**

 

The tension is running high inside the conference room.

Storybrooke Publishing is kind of unconventional, if not chaotic. It has a lot of magazines that it publishes, not to mention the books that are submitted to them and also—if good enough—makes it to printing, and that’s all and well, with it being able to touch base with a diversified crowd and being able to provide jobs for a good number of people since publishing takes more than one man, of course, but there is a downside to it.

The downside to it is that there is a certain tension amongst the spear heads once they try and calibrate their issues every month. The thing isn’t about being able to publish the same thing all across the different magazines, that would defeat the purpose of dividing the contents in the first place, but it only means that in a way they should publish contents coming from the same theme—which of course causes tension to rise very, very high in the conference room as each magazine editor in chief congregates, and well, butt heads.

“It doesn’t make sense to try the lifestyle section be in line with the Christmas theme, for the last time,” Robin retorts, rolling his eyes as he stands with his fists leaning on the table and supporting his body weight.

Regina looks up from where she is seated at the other end of the table and sighs. With Leopold out for the day, she’d been left in charge, and though she likes having that much power at times, this is not one of the days.

“And we got your point, loud and clear, when you decided to go with the first draft that the management clearly asked you to revise,” Regina retorts, rolling her eyes back at him. She’d screw her face up in displeasure if only it isn’t already quite obvious exactly how displeased she is already.

Robin smirks in derision, and she knows why—she had been, after all, one of the people who’d voted that he revised the whole thing and make it in line with the theme. “How many times am I going to have to tell you that men don’t give a shit about that?” he asks, repeating the same sentiment he’d used when he first started debating the need for them to go with the theme.  “You’re not making Daniel follow the same theme.”

Daniel looks at him and shakes his head, as if he can’t believe Robin’s just dragged him in this…and Regina’s heart jumps to her throat for a second because damn, he looks good and his hair looks nice and….no she shouldn’t really let her mind trail off like that.

She sighs at Robin with exasperation. “That’s because Mr. Colter’s piece is about Sports, not men’s lifestyle,” she explains, dragging the words and the phrases slowly as if she’s speaking to a five-year-old, not a thirty-five-year-old man that Robin is.

Robin gazes heavenwards but offers no more comment as Daniel looks at her with gratefulness in his eyes that makes her heart skip about ten beats though she tries to keep her composure. Seriously. She needs to stop ogling her colleague when she’s trying to conduct an important meeting—it’s not really very professional.

“I barely have time to change it all before we need to publish it on the first week of the month,” he complains, a whiny tone in his voice that makes her roll her eyes internally, barely actually managing to let it manifest outwardly. Seriously. Robin could be such a pain in the ass.

“You should have thought about that before you decided to go rogue and not follow instructions,” she says finally, shaking her head. She looks at all of them and smiles, “Alright you motley crew, meeting adjourned.” Collective sighs of relief permeate through the quiet, and Regina sighs, too, out of exasperation. “You can try to be less relieved about that,” she adds just as everyone stands, chuckling when they chuckle too.

Slowly, everyone piles out, until the only person left is herself, and well, the ever so annoying Robin Locksley.

“Are you going to be the next president?” Robin asks with just a hint of teasing to allow her not to take it seriously. “Expanding your kingdom, aren’t you, your majesty?”

She looks at him and glares. “You’re a pain in my ass, Locksley. I hope you know that,” she tells him, leaving his teasing unacknowledged. She isn’t going to bother having another verbal sparring with him. She’s entirely too tired.

She, very much like she’s done when they’d walked out of the elevators, walked before him, leaving him behind.

“And what a beautiful arse it is,” he yells after her and she can almost hear his smirk, and shakes her head, once again trying to fight the smile he is able to annoyingly tease out of her.

**. . .**

 

If there is one thing that Robin likes to do, it’s tease Regina Mills. Sure, their bickers can sometimes ( _most times)_ turn into heated arguments, but still, it’s so much fun to rile her up and watch expressions flash across her deep brown eyes, and most of the time, even if it’s annoyance that he reads in them, he enjoys annoying her.

Well, most times anyway. Not all the time. Sometimes, she can get too stuck up and her words become her sword and when they cut, they cut very deep. But most of the time, it’s all in the fun.

So when he’d presented her the old draft, he’d really just done it partially to try and get his way still (even knowing he’s going to have to follow the rules anyway), and partially to annoy her, because he knows she will be snarky, and most of the time her snarky replies can get pretty hilarious, and he loves that he gets to draw it out of her.

Not that there’s anything there, it’s just that she’s pretty entertaining when she’s annoyed and she’s probably the only person he knows who can match his wit without missing a beat, which he likes a lot about her, and which makes him enjoy riling her up even more.

And if he gets to make her smile, even just a little bit, even when she tries to hide it, then that’s something isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**Chapter Two**

 

When Regina gets home, she is entirely spent and is fending off the mother of all headaches. It’s a long day at the office, and the squabble hadn’t ended when the meeting has ended. Being the officer in charge and the senior editor has its downsides, and having to solve petty issues by her editors is one of them. Some are too mindless that she physically has to stop herself from doing something that would land her ass on the chair at the Human Resource department. Her headache had grown from a mere pain to a full blown migraine, and it’s wonder how she’s managed to haul her freezing ass out of the office and into her house. She had half the mind to just transport, but that hasn’t been the choice as she doesn’t think it would go down very well on the people of Storybrooke. Witches generally aren’t very popular here.

Yep, that’s right. She’s a witch. A closeted one, but a witch nonetheless. She’s come from a long line of witches that has spanned from generations to generations. Currently, there aren’t much of them, especially in her bloodline, but most of the ones she knows are undercover or have gone in hiding.

It’s 2018 and they’re still afraid of prosecution. In the dawn of Harry Potter and some crappy vampire novels and the stories that spawned from that, they’re still in hiding. Go figure.

But it isn’t much of an issue with her, anyway. . She’s been pretty disciplined about it and has been able to live a normal life, given the circumstances. She’s easily able to contain her magic, and she has more or less forbidden herself to use it unless she really, really needs to.

Right now, she’s wondering if her headache is dire enough for her to use magic on it and not regret it once she’s not blinded so much by the pain. She can barely see straight, and she has to feel her way through her house, her hands planted firmly on her walls, as she navigates blindly around. Her shoes has long been toed off and tossed to the side (she’ll pick it up later when she’s not dying anymore), and she’s shrugged herself out of her constricting clothes and in to her more comfortable ones. She’s cheated and used magic on that, but she’s in her house, she’s safe and it’s a very little thing that it’s not such a big deal.

She knows it’s a slippery slope from there.

She barely makes it to the couch, but when she does she collapses into it, her arm falling into her forehead as she fights the ache. Really, she shouldn’t torture herself this much, it’s so easy to send the pain away with a wave of her hand or a flick of her wrist, and she’s not above herself to admit that she hasn’t really been _that_ consistent where her magic is concerned.

She doesn’t get to contemplate much or more about the issue of her migraine when she feels the pain slowly ebb away and the pressure weighing down on her dissipate.  She blinks the remnants of her headache away and tries to focus her blurred vision. It doesn’t take much, though it does leave her a bit confused. She doesn’t think she’s used her own magic, but there’s no way her migraine would melt like that, otherwise.

“God, Regina stop being stubborn, I could feel your migraine from here. You could have made it disappear with a flick of your hand,” a voice booms behind her, effectively shocking her silly.

Her hand flies up to her chest and she rolls her eyes in annoyance. She turns around and finds the one person she hadn’t really thought she’d be seeing soon. “How did you get in here, Zelena?” she asks her sister who is now grinning at her in that teasing way that she always has even when they’d been kids. Her fierce red hair is a sharp contrast against the black fedora hat sitting on her head.

“I transported of course,” Zelena says with a shrug as she snaps her finger. Her bags disappear from where they had been placed next to her, and Regina knows her sister just sent it to the room that had not been offered, but Zelena would unabashedly take anyway.

“You can’t transport in my house, I put some spell around it,” Regina says absently as she stands from the couch. The pain is now gone, and her legs are no longer wobbly. She feels a tinge of regret for the unnecessary use of magic, but she reasons with herself that it isn’t her magic after all, and there’s no harm done since no one but her and her sister has seen it.

“Blood lock, Regina, really?” Zelena asks sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Oh, yeah, well of course.

Regina doesn’t say anything to that and instead moves to her kitchen to pour herself a drink. Her house is a huge one for the number of people occupying it (namely: one), but it has been her family’s for the longest time. The huge white colonial on 108 Milfin Street had been in the Mills’ possession since the 18th century, and though a lot of remodeling has been made to the house, it’s still the same house that Regina and Zelena has grown up in. It had more secrets than Regina and Zelena, and neither one of them had the heart to put it in the market. That would have been the smarter and more economical move, the upkeep of the house has its own fair share of Regina’s income, but Regina loves this house, and Zelena has all but relinquished her ownership of it to Regina.

Zelena says she’s more of a free agent, careless and adventurous. She has the same sentiments about the house, but she isn’t going to be tied to it the way Regina is. She is always welcome still though, no matter how far she goes in her travels, Regina knows she’s always going to come back home.

Regina keeps quiet even as she makes her way across her kitchen to grab herself a bottle of rum. She needs a stiff drink to get through the rest of the evening. Regina loves her sister a lot, but Zelena can be a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Zelena’s best friend is self-loathing and her constant company is chaos.

With one gulp, she finishes her glass and then hurries to pour herself another. She feels the stress of the day start to melt away, and sure she’ll face that tomorrow, but right now, it’s becoming more and more of a distant memory.

“What are you doing here, Zelena?” Regina asks her sister as she moves to sit on the counter, Zelena trailing after her. When Zelena grabs her glass and tries to sip her drink, Regina swats her hand away and her face contorts into something akin to disapproval. “That’s not yours.”

Zelena sighs and moves to grab herself her own glass. “Story of my life,” she murmurs with derision.

Regina rolls her eyes at her sister’s dramatic nature. It has been a point of disagreement between them before, and Regina can honestly say that she hasn’t quite the best and fondest memories of her sister growing up, because Zelena had once been such a jealous bitch thinking that their parents favored her more, when Regina had felt that she’d become nothing but  Zelena’s bodyguard, always trying to make sure her sister stays out of trouble.

“Seriously, Zelena, you barely ever come home anymore, unless something has happened or dooms day is upon us, so what are you up to now?” she asks once more, losing her patience. Sometimes, her sister can be an ass. Sure, they’ve repaired their relationship now, ever since their mother died and had left them both orphans with no one else to rely on but each other. It’s been tough at first, knowing from experience that they don’t get along very well or has tried to in the past. It’s taken some time before they’d been able to really get along , but they tried to work more on it, knowing they can rely on no one else but each other anymore, and now they’re best friends—except when Zelena brings trouble with her for Regina to clean up.

In a way, it’s kind of a routine now. Zelena makes a mess, Regina cleans it up. Regina makes a mess, guaranteed, Zelena is somewhat heavily involved.

“Oh nothing,” Zelena finally answers after a long sip of her drink. She pulls a face that might actually make Regina believe she’s in pain, if only Regina doesn’t know her very well. “You wound me, you know? I came here for you. Just to give you some sisterly advice, show you some sisterly concern…to see how you are lately.”

Yep. Sure. “What have you done this time?” Regina insists.

“It’s almost Christmas, Regina, why can’t I be with family on Christmas?” Zelena asks, appealing to the emotional side of Regina but Regina knows better.

“You said Christmas is nothing but another day manufactured to rob people blind of their hard earned savings for the year so that these money and power hungry tycoons can get richer. You said that when I was trying to get you to buy a Christmas tree with me.”

“That was three fucking years ago, Regina. Can’t people change?” Zelena asks, her voice a mixture of faux sadness and incredulity.

Regina knows better.

“It’s five,” she corrects, raising an eyebrow at her sister.

Zelena rolls her eyes. “Whatever,” she counters. “Besides I only said that so you wouldn’t drag my ass out on freezing cold just to get a Christmas tree! Knowing you it would have taken us 6 hours bare minimum for you to pick. And I was right, you left at 10 in the morning and came  back at 5 pm with nothing because you didn’t like any of it, and I had to magic us a perfect one, according to your standards, which boggles my mind, because why won’t you just use your own magic and stop being a weirdo about it?”

A gifted change of subject, but it isn’t going to work on her. Regina smirks at her sister. “Spit it out.”

Zelena must know that she has nowhere else to run or no other alibi to use against her own sister because with an overdramatic sigh and an exaggerated rise and fall of her shoulder that’s probably more effective to dislocate them than a shrug, she finally tells the truth. “I’m in a bit of a fix,” she says.

Regina hums but doesn’t say anything, waits for her sister to continue.

“Look, I’d been dating someone and it didn’t work out, and I need time to heal my aching heart,” Zelena says in a slapdash fashion and though Regina believes it, it’s not the whole truth. Regina levels her sister with a stare. Sometimes, it’s hard to say that Zelena is older than Regina by 3 years. She acts so much more immature. “He was married, okay? And it fell apart. He chose his wife, not me, and I’m not in trouble, but I want to— _need_ to get over it.”

For the first time in a long time, Regina sees the pain clearly written in her sister’s face. So she doesn’t say anything more, refrains from judging her sister too hard. Whatever it is, for all her faults, Zelena must have truly loved this man.

Regina takes her sister’s hand in hers, and when Zelena looks up at her, she smiles. “Stay for as long as you need, okay?”

Little does she know that she might actually come to regret that statement.

**. . . . .**

Robin is used to coming home to an empty house. Or at least, he has gotten used to that over the years. He’d been living alone for the most part, except for when he’d moved to Boston to study at University and he’d lived with two roommates who have become his best mates—John and Will. When he had decided to go back to Storybrooke, his hometown (or his hometown here in the States, anyway), his friends had decided to move along with him, which is for the better, since his parents have decided to move back to London after their retirement.

So, yes, Robin is used to being alone. It doesn’t get to him, anymore, on the better days, but with the Holiday season quickly approaching, he tends to miss having his family around. Sure, in the past three years since his parents have moved, he makes it a point to celebrate at least one holiday with them, be it Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day, his birthday or either of his parents’ birthday, but it is different to have his family around.

He sighs as he walks into his empty apartment, throwing his keys on the table and walking straight to the fridge to scour its contents. There isn’t much. There’s frozen pizza, some bacon, some eggs, and some potatoes that looks doubtful. There’s also beer, but that won’t make much of a dinner, would it?

He shuts the refrigerator door closed and makes his way to his bedroom to change into more casual clothes. When he walks out, he’s dressed in a green long sleeves and pair of dark wash denim. His stomach growls, alerting him to the fact that the last meal he’s had was at 11 am, before that infernal meeting with Regina and the others where he’d been asked to redo most of his content. He had been forced to slave over the changes in the December issue when it’s supposed to go into print that week. It’s the last week of November, and the meeting earlier today is only supposed to be about the distribution and all the logistics, but Regina had made him change the aesthetic to please her idea. Luckily for him, he only need to add some Santa hat and oddly placed Christmas baubles on the pages and John and Alan, his friends and the graphic designers for the company, could handle that. August had stayed late as well to help him out, but he had to stay later than the three of them, though, for last minute touch ups. They’d been running it too close this month, which is something they don’t usually do, but Leopold had been a little inefficient in the running of the publishing house lately, after there had been talks of him being replaced sometime in the next year.

It had seemed logical for him to stay later than most because he doesn’t have a family to go home too, unlike most of his team. Sometimes, he really hates being alone.

If his mother be asked, she’d probably say that it’s high time for Robin to get married. He’s in his thirties, and in his mother’s mind, he should be already on the way to giving her a grandchild, or better yet grandchildren. Robin doesn’t mind the idea, doesn’t mind having a family—a wife, three kids, and a dog—but the time hasn’t come for him yet. He hasn’t exactly found the one. Or maybe he has, he’s just been such a bloody idiot that is why he still doesn’t have her in his arms yet.

It isn’t like Robin hasn’t tried. He has dated before, and had been close to proposing to his girlfriend right after University, if only she hadn’t been cheating on him for her lab partner (that she’d claimed to only be her lab partner and nothing more). Upon finding out that he’d been about to propose, she’d apologized and said she just isn’t the marrying kind.

She isn’t alright, not to him anyway, because from what he last heard from John, Marian—his ex girlfriend—is now married to the same lab partner she’d cheated on him with.

So karma really is a bitch. A lazy bitch.

It doesn’t help him to think of that, though he knows he is well and truly over Marian. He loved her then, sure, but he knows the love he felt for her isn’t the kind to survive through the ages. Her infidelity had been more of a blow to his ego than to his emotions. Although that is the truth, he doesn’t like the implications of that, so he erases it from his minds.

Without second thoughts, he walks out of his apartment, locks it, and heads to Granny’s for dinner.

**. . . . .**

 

Although Regina knows that they can magic any kind of food from thin air, should they want to, she’d decided to just drag her sister out for dinner at Granny’s. It isn’t always that Regina allows herself to indulge, liking to eat healthier than her sister probably does. She’s in no mood to deal with making the food tonight, however, and she really needs to run to the grocery anyway, so out they go.

Zelena isn’t shy about letting her dislike known, and she doesn’t keep quiet about how cold it is or letting Regina know that she’s being dragged out against her will. It isn’t like Zelena to be so against being social so Regina knows that her sister’s last foray into love has done number on her. Apart from the haunted look on Zelena’s eyes and her sister’s sudden weight loss, Zelena hasn’t really been quite herself in the last hour. Usually, Zelena would be the one dragging Regina out, not the other way around.

“This is why I don’t miss Storybrooke all that much,” Zelena complains as they walk down the main street. “No offence, sis. But it’s always blithering cold in here.”

“It’s not like New York is all that warm, either,” Regina points out. Shortly after Regina and Zelena had moved to New York for studies, Zelena had decided that she isn’t coming back to live in Storybrooke like Regina. It had upset Regina at first, as they’d planned to come back, but she’d understood that Zelena is a different person who wants more out of her life than a small town life. She’d learned to accept that and live with it. “It’s Winter, it’s cold in most parts of the world.”

“It’s especially cold here,” Zelena grumbles with a roll of her eyes. “I wish I could magic the snow away.”

She could, and she probably would, except she and Regina have a pact to not use any form of magic in public unless one or both of them are dying. So far, Zelena has stuck to that agreement.

“You wouldn’t,” Regina says, raising an eyebrow, as if to dare her sister.

Zelena’s eyes narrows. “Don’t test me,” she grits out, huffing.

Regina only laughs but doesn’t say anything to provoke her sister. Today is not the day that she’ll provoke her sister to losing control. Actually, no day is that day for her.

It’s a blessed relief when they make it to the diner, and Regina sighs when she enters and the warmth engulfs her instantly. She shrugs off her coat, and directs her sister to the booth in the corner.

The diner is packed, the bitter coldness of the cloudless November night not doing much to dissuade the patrons from coming. It’s Granny herself who walks over to their table to take their orders. There’s a something about Granny that makes Regina uncomfortable, and even after all these years, Regina twitches in her seat as she sees the woman approaching them. Zelena throws her a sharp look, but Regina only shrugs. She cannot help it if she feels uncomfortable around the woman. She always makes Regina feel as though she knows something that Regina doesn’t—or that she knows what Regina and Zelena truly are.

“What’s it for you tonight, girls?” Granny asks, as if conveniently forgetting that Regina and Zelena are in their thirties and are no longer _girls_. She nods at Regina and looks at Zelena, her eyes narrowing. “Ah, I see you’ve come back, child.” It is said so blandly, with no emotion at all, and Regina struggles to figure out if Granny is pleased or perturbed with Zelena’s impromptu return.

Zelena grins, clearly not phased or uncomfortable like Regina. Over the years, Regina has learned to be less nervous around the other woman, she’s had to if she’d wanted to eat at the establishment without spooking herself. “I know when I’ve been missed, Granny.”

Granny makes a sound of disbelief that Zelena laughs off. Where Regina struggles to get comfortable, Zelena always thrives. Probably because Zelena has thick skin and doesn’t care about much.

“Tomato soup for me, Granny,” Regina says softly, diverting the older woman’s attention on her.

Granny scribbles on the paper in her hand, and then looks back at Zelena.

“I’ll have a clam chowder and a glass of coke,” Zelena says, watching as the older woman scribbles that down too, before she walks away from them. She then turns to Regina. “Would you stop acting like such a goof around Granny?”

Regina huffs and crosses her arms in front of her, resting her elbows on the table. “I’m not acting like a goof around her,” Regina defends herself, even though she knows it’s a futile attempt.

“Right,” Zelena says condescendingly. She opens her mouth to say something more, but Regina’s attention turns to the ringing of the bell by the door.

It’s like cold air flies past her and a shiver runs up her spine when she makes eye contact with the man standing by the door. The corners of _his_ eyes crinkles as he smiles at her, raising his hand up in salute, before he moves to the counter where Ruby is standing. He smiles at her, too, and Regina wonders what they are talking about when Ruby laughs, throwing her had back.

“Regina, are you even listening to me? What—,” Zelena asks her, but she doesn’t finish the question as she turns around and spots the man who has captured Regina’s attention. “You should probably just ask him out.”

Of course, that’s a very Zelena thing to say. Her sister is as brazen as they come, and it mostly works on her favor, but Regina’s not as forward. She can’t, and _won’t,_ just stand there and ask the man.

“I’m not going to ask Daniel out,” Regina says indignantly although her voice is low. She doesn’t really want to let the whole town in on her secret feelings for the man.

“You should,” Zelena insists as her shoulders rise and fall into a shrug. “You’re absolutely besotted. Look at your face.”

Regina rolls her eyes and scoffs, but she knows it must be somewhat true. She has had the biggest crush on the man for as long as she can remember. She’s known him at school before of course. He has been her sister’s classmate, and she’d been totally crazy over him. She’d never told anyone about it, though Zelena had found out upon reading one of her diaries. They’d had a big fight, and Regina literally had to threaten Zelena within an inch of her life to keep her secret. Regina had thought that her crush on Daniel’s been long gone and over, until he’d come back to Storybrooke to care for his ailing mother and had to live in town permanently, leaving behind his life in California. He’s definitely changed, more distinguished than he’d been at 18, but he’s still all smiles and courteous, and Regina finds herself harboring the same crush she’d had when she’d been in Junior High.

It’s all harmless though. She knows it would never be anything but a crush.

“Oh God, Regina, just do it already. Ask the guy out, before you start drooling here or something,” Zelena tells her, not bothering to hide her disdain at Regina’s lack of action. “Besides, I bet you haven’t had any since the last guy…what’s his name? Grant?”

“Graham,” Regina corrects automatically, and groaning when Zelena looks at her. She’s supposed to not care, except she does. Her fling with the town sheriff, however brief, had been a _thing_ , and though it has been years since and she _definitel_ y doesn’t feel anything for the man anymore (she doubts she ever has, anyway, they’d both agreed it had been nothing but scratching a mutual itch), she sees Graham literally everywhere. It’s not that easy to avoid him, forget him, or not care. Storybrooke is _such_ a small town.  Anyway, they’re _friendly_ now, so there’s no cause for bitterness.

“And I don’t want to get _any_ ,” Regina continues with a touch of haughtiness in her voice. “It’s just a crush. It’s harmless.”

Zelena makes a face that under no uncertain terms lets Regina know what she thinks about that statement. “You said that in Junior High, too.” Ah, and yep, there it is.

“Shut up, Zelena,” she retorts.

It is then that Granny decides to make an entrance, serving their orders. There aren’t any words exchanged this time, and Granny leaves them with their soups, still hot and smelling so delicious that it makes Regina’s stomach growl.  Regina has forgotten to take her lunch, what with being in charge of the office today due to Leopold’s absence. It’s not exactly a secret how Leopold has been coming short in his responsibilities, and since Regina is the head writer (a position that she’s gotten _too_ quickly according the gossip mills, and if they’re to be believed, something she’d either slept with Leopold for or used some sort of witchcraft to get, none of them knowing that the firm had no choice since it’s only been her, Leopold, and some woman named Blue who has worked there for only a few months before her). She is the only one with the credentials, having interned and worked briefly at a small publishing house in New York, before Robin, Daniel, August and the others had come along. The people who worked for Leopold before them had quit almost simultaneously, fed up with the way Leopold is running the business as the editor in chief. The arrival of the younger batch had enabled the Storybrooke Publishing to be revamped and be evolved. Now the publishing company is thriving, has grown from literally three people to ten, and with Storybrooke Mirror being printed everyday and the Storybrooke Digest printed every month.

Regina finds that though the work can be quite demanding, especially with Leopold slacking so much, it’s also quite rewarding.

She keeps that thought in mind for comfort as she lifts her spoon and starts diving into her tomato soup. Zelena is already eating her dinner and hasn’t paid any more attention. They keep silent for most of the diner, and only the soft buzzing of the conversations in other tables fill the quiet. It’s comfortable, and though Zelena can be a real pain, Regina finds that she misses moments like this with her sister.

Just then, laughter from the other side of the diner rings out, and Regina turns towards the source of noise, and she’s caught off guard to find that it’s Robin who let out the laugh. He is sitting with Daniel and some other guys from work and other guys she knows to be his friends. There’s Will, John, and Mary Margaret’s husband, David. They’re huddled in one booth and talking animatedly with one another. Robin’s head lifts up, as though he can feel her gaze, and their eyes meet. He smiles at her, winking, making her suddenly feel abashed, although she knows that Robin is just that way. He’s a charmer, and it mustn’t be so hard for him because he _is_ charming, loathe as she does to admit it.

She gives him an acknowledging nod and then drops her gaze. He seems to turn back to his friends, and she sighs.

“What? Daniel again?” Zelena asks.

“Nope, Robin, he was just saying hi,” Regina explains, though she finds it weird that she _has_ to explain. Zelena surely doesn’t care.

“Interesting,” Zelena says, curiosity coloring her tone although Regina doesn’t know what she’s curious about or if there _is_ something to be curious about. It’s just Robin, her once enemy turned good friend Robin. There’s nothing there. “I didn’t know you’re in speaking terms.”

“We’re friends,” Regina tells her, almost defensively, though she doesn’t know why.

“Really?” Zelena asks, though it almost seems like she’s already speculating rather than asking Regina if it’s real. “Are you sure you’re _just_ friends—because that look can’t have been friendly?”

What look?

Regina barely acknowledged Robin. And he’s clear across the room, for Pete’s sake.

“Oh stop. You’re going to pair me off to the entire Storybrooke before you leave again for God knows how long to God knows where,” Regina snaps bitterly at her sister.

“I was just saying, it could be something more. Maybe that’s why you don’t want to ask Daniel out?” Zelena continues, as though oblivious to Regina’s irritation.

“You’ve been gone for almost five years, and calls aren’t enough to know much about what’s going on in my life.” She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly lashed out, but it’s hard not to snap when Zelena assumes things or makes something out of nothing when she has been gone for a long time.

 It’s unfair.

“Calm down,” Zelena defends, throwing her hands up in the air in surrender. “I was just saying. There’s no need to attack me. We don’t want plates to start flying, because I guarantee that when they do, there won’t be hands involved.”

She’s not wrong, Regina admits to herself, so she lets it go. She doesn’t know why it’s gotten her so fired up in the first place anyway.

There’s nothing there with Robin and her. For God’s sakes, she has this huge crush on Daniel. Zelena literally just pointed it out.

So, whatever that look is, or _was_ , it’s _nothing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know anymore


End file.
